So I Stayed In the Darkness with You
by SongofHopeandHonor
Summary: ZK Week 2013 entries. Day 7, Spark - "The city that was once a prison now represents stints of freedom, and he wants to push out onto that porch and burst a column of fire into the air just because he can."
1. Calor

**A/N:** First of my Zutara Week entries! Warning for alcoholic references and suggestive themes. Just to clarify, Zuko and Katara are both of age, post war.

_calor [noun]: Spanish for heat_

* * *

Her hair is shorter, and her eyes (those blue blue eyes that could drown a man with the depths of pain and sacrifice they hold) are sadder, but her lips are still full and her hips are still wide, and he still wants her even though he should not.

"I'm sorry," is all he says about Aang, "you know you're welcome to stay here until you—until you feel better."

She just nods, mutely, and shuffles into the room he prepared for her before he knew for sure that she would come to him.

* * *

"You aren't to blame for any of it," he says, watching her twine her hair into an elaborate braid (she hasn't worn a braid since she was a child, and it makes her face seem rounder, younger). "People change. You were—"

"Unhappy. Caged." She swivels away from the vanity and stares at him with eyes that are still so very sad. "Duty bound. I've always been duty bound."

Zuko doesn't say anything more; he just counts his own heartbeats till the urge to hold her passes.

* * *

"People call it _calor_," he says, juggling the long-necked bottle. "It's the strongest kind of fire whiskey we have—are you sure you want—"

"Give it here." Katara snatches it out of his hands and brings the edge of it to her mouth, and her soft brown lips part over it, and her throat flexes as she guzzles it down.

"Alcohol won't solve anything," he says, for once the voice of reason (this shocks him), but she only grunts.

* * *

The spicy sting of it slides over both their tongues, and his nails bite her hips as she tangles him up in her loosened hair and her frantic hands. His heart beats a tattoo of how wrong wrong wrong this is; for the first time in his life heat feels foreign to him, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care if he's just a tool to help her forget, because he's been burning up for Katara since the day she first defied him.

* * *

When he wakes up, his tongue feels coated in needles and his head pounds like a drum, and he thinks that Katara will hate them both for this.

The heat lingers in his stomach, weighs him down. He grunts and drags Katara closer to him through the drenched sheets, drags her close and touches his lips to her hot throat.

Yes. Regret will come later.


	2. Euphoria

**A/N:** In which there is dancing and festivals and Zuko being a dork in love. Um.

_euphoria [noun]: a feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness._

* * *

The crown of flowers rests in her thick hair, red and orange contrasting against deep brown. Zuko understands why they're called fire lilies, because they really do look like living flame captured in the harmless confines of glossy petals.

The flowers suit the blissful expression of sheer giddiness on Katara's face, the sort of happiness that only children can typically attain. She's lazing at his side, the lanterns' light reflecting in her eyes, gilding her dark skin with gold.

He wraps his fingers around her wrists, brings her hand to his mouth, and touches his lips to her knuckles. "Thank you, Katara," he says.

The giddiness fades a little, eclipsed by confusion. "For what?" she asks, rolling onto her side, sprawling along this relatively secluded patch of grass. The festivities still ring in their ears, still infects their blood with the scent of spicy food and the primal thrum of music. The Fire Lily Festival isn't something he thought he'd experience again, let alone with a beautiful young woman at his side, her pretty face creased with excitement and (miraculously) affection.

But it's real, it's happening, and for all his inability to properly express emotion, Zuko wants to jump to his feet and whoop with joy.

He restrains himself (of course).

"For," he stammers, drawing her closer, sprawling out on his back and pulling her across his chest, "for being here." _For teaching me that dancing in public isn't all that embarrassing. For letting me feed you a spicy souffle and doing your best not to vomit it onto my shoes_.

Katara trembles on top of him, and he knows that the adrenaline of dancing still lingers, because her eyes are bright and her face is flushed and her fingers move restlessly across his shoulders. "Don't thank me," she says. "I love you."

This, _this_ he can say with little trouble. "I love you, too." Her giddiness has utterly permeated his own system, and now he rolls them both to their feet, hooks his arms around her sturdy waist, and spins them both around until his blood whooshes through his head and his heart thumps till it might burst.

Happiness, true happiness, is a rare commodity in Zuko's life, and he's going to clutch at this euphoria with both hands and worry it between his teeth till it's wrung dry.


	3. Voices

**A/N:** So I like Aunt Wu a lot.

_voices [noun]: the sound produced in a person's larynx as speech or song. [verb]: express something in words._

* * *

Zuko sticks a finger in one ear and squints around the candlelit den, coughing as he inhales too much incense-clogged air. "This," he says to Katara, "is your worst idea yet."

"I thought my worst idea was that thing with the vase and the blasting jelly," she muses, mouth curling into an irresistible bow that makes him want to kiss the smugness off her face. But because he is _Zuko_, because he is so very incapable of letting himself go in (relative) public, he sticks to cupping her hand and running a reproving thumb over her wrist.

"No," he says, voice lowering even more when footsteps pass along the floor outside this room, "I'm pretty sure this—visiting someone who is _clearly_ a fraud—is a thousand times worse than—than that."

"Master Katara, dear!" Madame Wu enthuses, pattering into the room and taking hold of Katara's cheeks, lifting the younger woman up to smack a kiss onto her smooth forehead. "It has been far too long."

"That it has," Katara says, flushing with what might be embarrassment, or happiness. She touches her swelling stomach, and says, "We've been in the area, and I thought I might stop by for old time's sake."

"Ah." Madame Wu squints her heavily made-up eyes at Zuko and purses her garishly painted mouth.

"A powerful bender, this one, I would guess," Wu muses without so much as an introduction or a by-your-leave.

Zuko squints.

"Yes," Katara demurs, inclining her head.

"And tall, I would guess, once he stands?"

"Relatively so," and Katara's voice starts to bubble with giggles.

"Handsome, too," Madame Wu goes on, sitting across from them and juggling a pile of dry knuckle bones in her open palm.

Katara nods, enthusiastically, and suddenly hunches forward, clutching her protruding belly and wheezing with a force that makes Zuko worry, considering the child in her womb and the imbalanced state of her hormones. He touches the small of her back and coaxes her into the crook of his arm.

Madame Wu buffs her nails on her qipao and casts Zuko a shrewd look. "Your husband may think me a 'fraud', but I'm glad that you still have a little faith, my dear."

Zuko does not recall being introduced as Katara's husband, but he is too distracted by the confused flush of shame that races to his cheeks to linger on that oddity. "How—I mean—" _Damn, how did she even_—

"Voices carry in this house, dear," Wu says, but her eyes sparkle with a mirthful secrecy. "Voices carry."


	4. Gravity

**A/N:** I don't like babies, but I like Zutara babies.

_gravity [noun]: heaviness or weight (seriousness and/or solemnity)_

* * *

Katara cannot remember the last time her limbs felt this heavy, like her bones have been filled with stone rather than marrow. Perhaps they felt like this when she saw lightning crackle towards Zuko (no, no, do not think of that). Maybe she felt like this when Aang fell out of the Avatar state and into her arms, tiny limbs limp as a broken doll's. Or…or the day of her mother's—

But this…this is a _good thing_, and is in no way comparable to _those_ nightmarish seconds, minutes, hours. All the same, she cannot think of any other times in which her body felt like it was tied to a thousand tiny stones, dragging her down. But the heaviness in her arms and legs cannot compare to the constant weight in her womb.

Katara rests one hand on the swollen protrusion of her stomach as she waddles into the hot springs, the other wrapped around Zuko's. She grumbles, because so much of her skin is exposed, because she's swelled up all over in front of her _husband_, Spirits take it, but he looks at her the way he always has, with devotion and admiration, and she flushes when he plants his warm lips on the crook of her neck.

"I didn't know it was possible to feel this heavy," she says, sinking up to her shoulders in the water, tugging Zuko down to sit beside her. That isn't quite true; she's felt this heaviness before, in different ways, different contexts, but to be weighed down by fear and hate is wholly different than a baby in your belly.

"I'll make up for it, I promise," Zuko says, tucking chunks of hair behind her ear, trailing kisses up and down her jaw. Katara bites back a giggle (she's trying to be irritable, damn it, and he can't ruin that with sweetness) and shifts around in the water, watching rivulets spread out around her body, swirling it around with the force of her bending (if she bends often while pregnant, perhaps it will be a waterbender, and nothing will give her satisfaction like the look on the nobility's faces when they see that the heir to their kingdom is a_waterbender_).

"How?" she quips. "Changing all her diapers?"

Zuko winces and sits back, spreading his bare, honed arms over the lip of the hot spring. "Uh, I wouldn't go so far as to say _all_ of them…"

Katara's brows climb her forehead.

Zuko coughs and twists an arm around his wife. "Ah…sure. Right, sweetheart. I can, uh, do that."

"You can also carry me everywhere for the duration of my pregnancy," and she's only half teasing. "I wish you luck; carrying me right now would be like carrying a sack of bricks, I think."

Zuko grabs her by the jaw and pulls her face around, moving his lips all along her skin until they touch hers. He opens his palm on her protruding stomach, rubs tiny circles. "Katara, if you weighed as much as The Boulder, I would still carry you to the ends of the earth and back."

"You're such a sap."

But, quite suddenly, Katara feels a thousand times lighter.


	5. Bound

**A/N:******So this is dumb.

_bound [noun]: a boundry. [verb]: to walk or run with leaping strides. [adjective]: heading towards somewhere or restricted to a specified space._

* * *

They move in tandem—they have always been equals, in one way or another, if not true opposites (they are too much alike, with their pain and their tempers and the depths of how much they can hate, to be _opposites_, in spite of their clashing elements). They are in sync, always, whether it be in thoughts or in combat.

Zuko's fist jams out, punching a stream of fire into the air just as Katara's hand flings out a coil of water. The water wraps round the fire, putting it out, and Katara laughs because Zuko looks so disgruntled, but not surprised.

"Again," he insists, and she acquiesces with a shrug (_I _know_ you, you won't give up, you never give up, that's what makes you, _you). She lashes out with another whip of water just as his foot lifts and spurts flame, and the coils of opposite elements twine tighter than a length of rope, bound together, hissing steam into the damp morning air.

"You'll never win, you know," she teases. "Neither of us will."

Her bindings are charred and his pants are drenched (their sparring frightens the palace staff, and only their friends know that Katara and Zuko thrive on the intensity of their combat, that neither will be hurt for all the apparent viciousness).

"Except," she adds, "for all the times I _did beat_ you."

"Those don't count," the Fire Lord insists, ramming his knuckles into his mouth, shaking off sweat.

"You wish they didn't," and they're at it again, forever confined to this space where they can both truly_breathe_.


	6. Soothe

**A/N:** Clarification - this is set late season 1.

_soothe [verb]: to reduce pain or discomfort._

* * *

The disbelief that flares in his eyes, curls through his voice, would insult her if she didn't know that it was warranted. "Why are you helping me?"

Katara shrugs and clumsily bends a stream of water over the gash in his abdomen, wincing at the frayed edges of it. She screws her eyes shut, forces all her untrained power down her arms, into her hands, and prays to La that the water will start to glow.

Prince Zuko angles his head to one side, arms braced on the tree roots that cup his body, every muscle tensed like he's ready and willing to throw her to the side or fling a handful of fire in her face, should it be necessary. That doesn't surprise her. She might as well be trying to heal a wounded, cornered wolfbat.

_I'd sooner take the wolfbat_, she thinks wryly, and dares to peel her eyes open to peek at his stomach. His skin ripples from the pain and the water's chill, but there is a luminescent glow, and the edges of his wound are knitting themselves back together, slowly. Katara's blood spikes with giddiness; she presses down harder (ignoring his gasp and grimace) and swears she sees the wound closing faster.

"So what happened?" she asks, shaking off the last vestiges of grogginess (she nearly ran back to their camp with warnings in her throat, till she saw the blood soaking through his armor).

"…Bandits," he mumbles, squinting at her healing hands.

"At least it wasn't pirates," and she doesn't know why she's joking of such things, with this boy of all people, but the bizarreness of the situation coupled with the worry she feels for a person she shouldn't care about at all makes her tongue reckless.

Zuko snorts and taps his fingers against a piece of shed armor, and Katara tries very hard not to notice how defined his abdomen is under the wound and the smears of blood.

Katara sits back on her heals, mumbles, "There," and wonders if she should start running now. Their truce…if you can call it a truce…lasted as long as the healing process, and now—now he has no reason not to trail her back to camp and, thusly, find the Avatar he covets so badly.

"I still don't understand," and he grabs her wrists, but his grip is far gentler than the first time, his calluses catching on her skin rather than bruising it, "but thank you. I…" He scowls, and his ugly, scarred face turns uglier for the twisted expression. "I am in your debt."

"I didn't help because I _wanted_ something. But if—if you insist on owing me, I'll ask you not to follow me to Aa—the Avatar for tonight."

His pale lips peel back from his teeth, and as he straightens up, she fears that his sense of honor and debts owed is not as strong as desire to capture her best friend.

But then he slumps, shrugs, and says, "_Fine_. For tonight, I'll leave you all be. On…on my honor."

She swears that he's _pouting_, and his face goes from ugly to endearing, and so much younger than it looked before. And then she sits forward on her knees and smooths her lips over his cheek, and he jumps like she just shot him full of lightning.

"What's your name?" he asks with Katara's lips lingering on his face.

"Katara."

"Thank you…Katara." Zuko catches her chin between his fingers and kisses her open mouth.


	7. Spark

**A/N:** Oops, finally finishing off this collection months after the fact (it's actually been completed for ages over on AO3 but what can you do). This drabble's pretty puny but eh.

Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed/favorited/etc =)

_spark [verb]: emit sparks of fire or electricity; to engage in courtship. [noun]: a small fiery particle thrown off from a fire, alight in ashes, or produced by striking two hard surfaces such as stone or metal._

* * *

When he touches the slick sides of the teapot, his fingertips heat up and sting, and he thinks of the days when he had to hide what he was in this walled city, back when even the tiniest puff of smoke or the smallest trickle of steam could have landed him and his uncle in chains.

But the war is over, and his uncle is a permanent fixture in Ba Sing Se (a mascot of sorts, almost), and for all the hundred years' worth of suspicion that lingers in earth-hued stares, Zuko no longer has to hide who or what he is. The city that was once a prison now represents stints of freedom, and he wants to push out onto that porch and burst a column of fire into the air just because he can.

Sturdy brown hands fold over his on the teapot and squeeze, and Zuko glances up into warm blue eyes that hold no suspicion at all (what a miracle that is, for all the times he dashed her trust). His fingertips tingle again, and he flips his hands around to grasp hers.

"Need help?" she asks, glancing at him from under her lashes. "You have customers waiting, Fire Lord."

He touches his mouth to hers across the counter and feels sparks of pleasure slide off his tongue and onto hers. "That I do, Fire Lady."


End file.
